Leftovers With Benefits: An Interracial Contemporary Romance

by C. L. Donley

  Fuck it, he thought, as he fucked Kenya senseless in his mind. Buy condoms on the way home.

  * * *

  As Cecil Hamilton reclined with one huge hand draping her knee as he drove, Lindsey Hayes was a nervous wreck on the way to the doctor’s office.

  “Are you sure it was him?”

  “Yeah, Linds, I know what Kevin looks like.”

  Lindsey was on the phone with her sister Henley, saying she’d seen him at the farmer’s market over the weekend. And he was with someone.

  “And this girl he was with, she was black?

  “Yep.”

  “Short with short hair?”

  “I’d say she was pretty tall and she had like, awesome hair. She looked like that chick from 5th Harmony.”

  What?!

  Lindsey tried to remember the way Cecil’s crazed ex looked in the darkness, fleeing the scene before the police could show up. Thankfully, she’d kept her distance, but now she was desperate to remember what she looked like.

  “Well, it would have to be his ex. Like… that’s the only explanation.”

  “Well, I just thought you’d want a head’s up. You don’t want to be the last to know.”

  “I don’t think it’s romantic. In any way. I mean, she vandalized his car. Maybe he’s like… just trying to be nice.”

  “Maybe, but they seemed sort of chummy. He was like, watching her every move,” Henley regaled, secretly enjoying making Lindsey squirm.

  “Okay… what were they doing??”

  “Just buying shit and walking around. Laughing.”

  “What… the fuck.”

  “You know how guys are. They move on fast. One fuck and they’re officially over it.”

  “Henley, I gotta go. Thanks for the heads up.”

  “No problem, sis.”

  Cecil was next to her in the car, patiently waiting for the update.

  “The fuck was that about??” he inquired, confused.

  “You would not believe what my fucking sister just told me.”

  What in God’s name would Kevin Hayes see in Cecil’s horrible banshee ex, Lindsey marveled as she and Cecil sat in the waiting room at the doctor’s office.

  Kenya was inordinately bitter, practically heartless. When Cecil came home from his second tour in Afghanistan to find that his baby sister died in a car wreck, he was lucky if he got so much as a loving word out of her.

  His amazing qualities were invisible to her. Cecil always said that he felt like he had to constantly jump through hoops to make her happy, convinced one day he would be able to, but he’d realized that was impossible. The one thing he loved about Lindsey, he felt like he didn’t need to perform for her. He could truly be himself.

  Kenya’s inexcusable behavior that night in front of Kevin’s house only solidified Lindsey’s instincts about her. Not only was it uncalled for, it made absolutely no sense. Now she cared what he did or where he went?

  It seemed she was jealous for Cecil’s time and attention, but too rude to communicate it in a way to which he could positively respond. The way Lindsey saw it, Kenya and Cecil were practically dead in the water the moment they began, much like her and Kevin, she had to admit.

  If she was that way with a man like Cecil, then what carnage would be left in her wake with Kevin?

  With his chronic—practically terminal—disease to please, Kenya would positively drain a man like Kevin bloodless.

  Assuming, of course, there would be something about her other than her body that he would want.

  Lindsey returned to her previous conclusion. There was just no way those two would be attracted to each other. Unless it was just purely physical. Yeah, ok, that was it. They were just using each other for sex. The idea was a little disturbing, but not far-fetched. Kenya certainly would know what it was like to be intimate with a soldier. And even she had an element of pity on how long she’d left poor Kevin hanging.

  The doctor broke through her thoughts.

  “So, it looks like you’re about 10 weeks along,” the doctor cheerfully reminded her. Lindsey inwardly cringed and tried to move the appointment along hurriedly with her mind.

  The more she thought about how far along she was, the more she realized there was no fucking way this baby was Cecil’s.

  God, the one time she throws Kevin a bone.

  Lindsey told Cecil about Vegas, but omitted the fact that they had slept together again. If Cecil noticed at all he was staying mum about it, and she was fearful. He had a way of stewing about something unbeknownst to anyone and then just springing his private findings on her. Unlike Kevin, who didn’t seem to know when to shut up. It kept her on her toes, but sometimes— like this time— not in a good way.

  “Will you be wanting to know the sex of the baby?”

  “Yes,” she smiled, briefly turning to face Cecil before she answered.

  “At what point can we do a DNA test?” Cecil asked.

  Lindsey went cold. Embarrassed as fuck, but she stayed mum.

  “Whenever you like,” the doctor answered with unbiased professionalism.

  Cecil looked down at Lindsey on the examining room table. She returned his look and smiled.

  “I just wanna be sure,” he consoled her, knowing her thoughts.

  Swiftly she nodded without saying a word, a lump in her throat forming as he gave her a loving kiss.

  10

  Chapter 10

  By the time he had given her her third orgasm in two days, Kenya had to admit that she’d sorely underestimated Kevin.

  In fact, she hadn’t estimated him at all. He simply was there. He was there and wouldn’t leave. Like a wet, malnourished kitten.

  But he wasn’t a kitten, he was a man. Pussy whipped, perhaps, but still a man. A universal truth she’d overlooked.

  Call it negligence. Call it post-breakup fragility. Despite how they came to be two pathetic rejects eating crockpot meals, he was now a man with way too much information about her, and she was a woman whose husband left her with little recourse.

  When Kenya got off work she drove straight home, despite the fact that their little broom closet “hanky panky,” so-called, had completely wrecked her self-control. All she could think about was sex. If she went to his house after work like she wanted, she would violate her own “no sex” rule.

  Was Kevin right? Did they really have chemistry? Was it more than just kink and curiosity that was causing her to feel so much from so little? She couldn’t get that confident smirk of his out of her mind, as if he truly knew something about her that she didn’t already know.

  “Just… chill out,” she answered herself aloud. It was far more likely that she was simply shell-shocked from the sudden change in her life. She just needed rub one out, take a bubble bath and watch a mind-numbing movie until she dozed off. Hopefully she would be a clear-headed woman the next day.

  But it wasn’t meant to be.

  She stared at her phone as it rang. The strange number that she refused to save in her phone popped up, daring her her to pick up, jolting her nerves.

  That’s it, just let it ring, her mind coached her.

  The warbling stopped.

  Kenya blew the breath out of her cheeks. Out of the woods for now. He seemed like the type to leave a voicemail.

  All you gotta do is keep saying ‘no,’ she reasoned. It’s always hard at first.

  Bitch, you didn’t say anything about cold turkey, her body protested.

  Suddenly she got a text.

  DO. NOT. CHECK IT, she frantically advised herself. She scoffed and rolled her eyes at her own inner voice as she clicked on the message.

  “You’re off tomorrow aren’t you?” Kevin’s message read.

  “I am,” she answered.

  “What’s in the crockpot tonight?”

  A smile unconsciously bloomed on her face.

  “White chicken enchiladas.”

  He sent her a Homer Simpson drooling GIF and she laughed.

  “Can I come over?�
�� he asked.

  The smile grew and she bit her lip in an attempt to suppress it.

  “Just to eat?” she replied.

  “Can you be more specific?” he texted playfully. She giggled like a girl as her nipples perked up.

  “Just to eat FOOD??”

  “Okay. If you want,” he responded.

  “I do want.”

  “This was all your idea, btw. or did you forget?”

  “No. I didn’t. Which is why I’m setting the rules,” she said.

  “So basically, what you say goes?”

  “In this case? Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it, Kevin. No messy shit.”

  “You’ve forgotten my super power already.”

  “Lol,” she replied.

  “Kenya” he wrote. A chain reaction hit her body as she read. With trepidation, she responded.

  “What?”

  “Your husband’s an idiot.” he wrote, simply.

  God. She was going to sleep with him.

  “I agree,” she texted back.

  “Your wife’s an idiot.” she added.

  “I’m coming over.”

  Kenya smushed her face into her pillow and let out a frustrated groan before standing up, bending over and pointing accusatory at her groin.

  “Are you happy now? Huh, bitch?!”

  She rushed into her closet to find the biggest, baggiest pajama shirt she could find and some flannel striped pants. She tried to decide which was less sexy: bra or no bra? She decided to meet in the middle and put on an old dumpy sports bra with the elastic worn out of it. She topped it off with her fluffy robe and found some fuzzy Halloween edition socks to put on. She took a deep breath, adjusted the silk wrap on her head and went back upstairs to the kitchen. Not long after, there was a knock at the door.

  Kenya opened the door with a cordial grin, dressed like a poor stay at home mom on house arrest.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  He closed the door behind him as she abandoned him at the doorway to go upstairs. He took off his coat, watching her peculiarly as he hung it.

  “So… how was your day?” he began, still trying to read her mood.

  “Shitty. Yours?”

  He shrugged, the mid-day hanky panky hanging in the silence between them.

  “Still hungry?” she asked innocently.

  “Starving,” he replied, less innocently. She smiled, clearly determined to ignore the implication.

  He played along, grinning.

  This was gonna be way easier than he thought.

  “Tell me more about this shitty day of yours,” he volunteered as he sat down.

  They ate dinner as Kenya rambled about her day, complete with aliases and devoid of HIPAA violations. Afterward, he managed to maintain his distance the entire evening, which only drove Kenya out of her mind. Kevin had become sexy and Kenya had become 16 years old.

  Should she be surprised at all? Sex turned everyone into secret geniuses, why would it be any different with Kevin? Who she was now noticing was elegant and attentive and humble and sincere…

  “So now what?” Kevin suddenly said after they’d watched a movie at opposite ends of the couch in relative silence.

  “It’s getting late,” she volunteered, weakly. Too weakly in his estimation. He called her bluff.

  “It is. And I do have work in the morning.”

  She shrugged, conspicuously quiet as her desires dueled within her.

  “Sucks for you,” she eventually answered.

  “But then again… I haven’t taken a sick day in three years.”

  Her heartbeat doubled.

  “Kevin…”

  “I love my name so much more now than I ever have,” he said as he closed the distance between them. “Say it again.”

  At that her heartbeat tripled. His words sent warm arousal all over her body.

  “Geez, what have I done,” she groaned. She said it as much for herself as she had for him.

  She saw herself, a fly in a web, having toyed with the laws of nature and was now paying with her self-control.

  She could always make bodily piecemeal concessions with Cecil without spiraling. In fact, he was the one who taught her. But she was now realizing that wasn’t right, and was never right.

  “What’s with all the layers?” he asked. She smiled, giddy that he even noticed.

  “You know I like to be fuzzy at home.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to seduce me,” he said as he grabbed her and forced her onto his lap. She laughed and folded into him girlishly as he tickled her neck with kisses.

  “Is it the sexy headscarf or the Halloween socks?” she asked.

  “Definitely the Halloween socks,” he whispered as he untied her robe and reached underneath her oversized shirt for the waistband of her pajama bottoms.

  “Remember the rules,” she panted.

  “Is that for me or yourself?” he lowly asked.

  “Definitely for you,” she said, shedding her fuzzy robe. He let go of her and she stood up, shedding the pajama bottoms herself. She kept her long sleep shirt in place.

  “What are you doing?” he grinned, looking up at her as she slowly straddled him.

  “Testing your superpower, marine,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  Kevin gave a surprised chuckle as his hands cruised up and down her back. This was going to be a brutal test, he could tell. Which meant he was going to like it.

  “No kissing. Period,” she said as she shed her sleep shirt. He looked down at her cleavage which was busting out of her sagging bra. He whined mournfully.

  “And no hands,” she added.

  “Kenya, what the fuck,” he replied. She looked at him in surprise as she cracked a smile. The word “fuck” out of his mouth was so sexy. Everything he said or did was sexy. She was completely upside down.

  “Is this a super power or isn’t it?” she teased.

  He sighed as he relinquished his hands from her body and splayed them on either side of the couch cushions.

  She maintained eye contact with him as she shed her bra. Kevin made use of the few senses afforded him as he perused her body, naked except for her Halloween socks. He licked his lips.

  “Can you put your tits in my mouth?”

  “Both of them?” she laughed. He grinned as he nodded.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Please, I’ve been dreaming about it since yesterday.”

  She laughed. “Any more questions?”

  “Are we gonna fuck this time or what?” he asked.

  “…I don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

  “There’s condoms in my pocket.”

  “My my, someone is in a mood,” she said, creaming herself all over his jeans.

  “You said I can’t use my hands. Or kiss you. You didn’t say I couldn’t use my mouth.”

  “Oh, I see,” Kenya glared. “You’re trying to get me to break my rule.”

  “…Maybe.”

  “Fact.”

  “If I can’t use my hands or my mouth, how else am I gonna pleasure you?”

  Kenya wrinkled her nose.

  “Oh, damn. I genuinely hadn’t thought about that.”

  “I can tell,” he grinned.

  “I was just focused on torturing you.”

  “You’d torture a man with PTSD?”

  Kenya winced and let out a delicious moan as she undid his belt buckle.

  “It’s literally my favorite thing.”

  “Why?” he chuckled, his pulse quickening.

  “To you, it feels like you’re in danger, like you’re about to die,” she said, as if she’d somehow absorbed the feelings through the sex. “Only a man would let his life be put directly in danger for a fuck,” she said, leaning down to put her mouth on his neck. It was the first time she’d done such a thing and it sent a potent rush to his groin. His brow furrowed and his
jaw went slack. He let out the gust of air he was holding, in a sort of laugh.

  “I like that,” she said, “I like it a little too much.”

  “We’re a buncha filthy bastards,” he panted. “You think we like being this way?”

  “I have no idea, but it’s fuckin’ hot.”

  He’d never thought of it that way, he had to admit. He had been trying to get rid of his symptoms. Be normal again, whatever that was. He never thought of just… going with it.

  “I wish I’d known that a month ago,” he said.

  “Known what a month ago?”

  “Never mind,” he said.

  “Kevin, you know better,” she admonished him.

  “When we first met,” he clarified, but only slightly. “I wish I’d known.”

  They looked at each other as the admission hung in the air, as heavy as she feared it was.

  “You were checking me out at the hospital, huh?” she giggled, a bit disbelieving.

  She waited for him to laugh but he only intensified his gaze.

  “I wanted to see the woman that was so horrible that she made a man feel like he needed my wife.”

  “And?”

  “And, I’m… really glad I did.”

  She stared at him for a long moment.

  “Well. I hope you remember your coping exercises, because you’re about to get fucked tonight, soldier.”

  Kevin’s pulse beat in his ears.

  “You like that I’m mentally ill, Nurse Hamilton?” he breathed.

  Kenya buried her face in his shoulder as she laughed.

  “You’re ridiculous,” she chuckled.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  Another jolt to her middle. She knew better. Knew that he was a guy and that he wanted what all guys wanted. Yet another lesson from her husband.

  But Kevin doesn’t lie, her inner voice insisted.

  She rested her arms on his shoulders, her eyes exploring his. His dark pupils darted this way and that, surrounded by a pool of muted gold. The irises had darkened for some reason, she noticed. She was fascinated. Suddenly she realized he was also looking into her. Only he wasn’t lost.

  “Which pocket?” she came to her senses.

  “Both.”

  She giggled as she reached in his pockets to find them both stuffed with condoms.